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No, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance is not primarily about school bullying, but it, as well as other forms of raw physical and mental aggression, as well as redemption, feature heavily in Hillbilly Elegy. The adjective "searing" is overused in reviews of Hillbilly Elegy but it is unavoidable. JD Vance has been exposed to and participated in life on both sides, Ivy League elite and downtrodden Appalachian culture. He observes "that working class boys like me do much worse in school because they view schoolwork as a feminine endeavor. Can you change that with a new law or problem? Probably not." Yet, the book shows incredible compassion, and attempts at understanding, of the people he's inevitably left behind in his journey from a lower-class boy in danger of failure to Yale Law School Graduate and finally to VP candidate.JD Vance From Hillbilly Elegy said:The next day at school, I felt nervous and hoped that the bully would take a day off. But in the predictable chaos as the class lined up for lunch, the bully— his name was Chris asked my little charge whether he planned on crying that day. "Shut up" I said. "Just leave him alone" Chris approached me, pushed me, and asked what I planned to do about it. I walked right up to him, pivoted my right hip, and sucker-punched him right in the stomach. He immediately— and terrifyingly-dropped to his knees, seemingly unable to breathe. By the time I realized that I'd really injured him, he was alternately coughing and trying to catch his breath. He even spit up a small amount of blood.
Chris went to the school nurse, and after I confirmed that 1 hadn't killed him and would avoid the police, my thoughts immediately turned to the school justice system whether I'd be suspended or expelled and for how long. While the other kids played at recess and Chris recovered with the nurse, the teacher brought me into the classroom. I thought she was going to tell me that she'd called my parents and I'd be kicked out of school. Instead, she gave me a lecture about fighting and made me practice my handwriting instead of playing outside. I detected a hint of approval from the teacher, and I sometimes wonder whether there were school politics at work in her inability to appropriately discipline the class bully. At any rate, Mamaw found out about the fight directly from me and praised me for doing something really good. It was the last time I ever got in a fistfight.
This was Judah P. Benjamin's reaction to the disparagement of his birth religion. Judah P. Benjamin was a remarkable historical figure, having been a successful Louisiana lawyer, a U.S. Senator, a Confederate Attorney General, Secretary of War and eventually Secretary of State. He thereafter fled to Great Britain and France, in part to reunite with his wife and daughter and in larger part to avoid he imprisonment and ignominy of being imprisoned or executed by the victorious Union.Judah P. Benjamin by Pierce Butler said:Being contemptuously referred to by an opponent in debate (some place the scene in the Senate, some on the hustings in Louisiana) as "that Jew from Louisiana," Benjamin retorted: "It is true that I am a Jew, and when my ancestors were receiving their Ten Commandments from the immediate hand of Deity, amidst the thunderings and lightnings of Mt. Sinai, the ancestors of the distinguished gentleman who is opposed to me were herding swine in the forests of Scandinavia."
I’ve not read extensively about the Panama Papers but recall reading several columns. One claimed they expose few Americans for tax scam’s because the extreme wealthy in America pay so little in income tax, they don’t need tax shelters. Makes sense but is it true? Could be they are merely protecting American billionaires.I just started the Panama Papers
It goes into how the investigation came about and how many people were involved.
So far, so good
I read at least one of those long ago,Just for fun reading I've been burning through Clive Cussler novels... Be careful once you start into them you won't stop...
I just finished reading Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly. I purchased this book on a whim from the gift shop of Fort Macon State Park in North Carolina, which I rarely do since it is a decidedly uneconomical way of obtaining reading material. It was decidedly worth the purchase. First the quibbles; it is a slower read than most since I had no previous familiarity with the subject matter, the history of piracy. My knowledge was limited to childhood entertainment such as Peter Pan and children's editions of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson and Daniel DeFoe. This goes back to Second Grade, 1964-5. Also, the descriptions of pirate violence, and of the civil authorities' execution of many of the pirates was quite graphic.David Cordingly said:There is nothing romantic about modern piracy, and as in earlier times, it is not uncommon for the captain and crew to be seriously wounded or killed if they fail to cooperate. Since piracy is simply armed robbery on the high seas, and has been accompanied by a catalog of cruelties and atrocities, it is surprising that it should have acquired a comparatively glamorous image. Part of the explanation may be found in the exotic locations where many of the pirates operated. The cruising grounds of the most notorious seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pirates were the tropical waters of the Caribbean, the west coast of Africa, and the Indian Ocean. Coral islands, lagoons, and sandy beaches fringed with coconut palms have an extraordinary attraction for those brought up in colder northern latitudes, and this is why even a small-time pirate like Calico Jack, who attacked fishing boats in the seas around Jamaica, has more appeal than a bank robber or a thief who specializes in raids on main-street banks or stores. There is also the romance of the sea. The mythical voyages of Odysseus, the travels of Columbus, Magellan, and Captain Cook, and the sea stories of Conrad and Melville have fascinated generations of land-based readers. The pirates who roamed the seas in search of plunder share in this fascination.
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The films of the thirties and forties took the pirate stories of fact and fiction and added glamour. The swashbuckling heroes played by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and Errol Flynn were handsome and chivalrous but bore little resemblance to the pirates of the Caribbean on whom they were based.
The fact is that we want to believe in the world of the pirates as it has been portrayed in the adventure stories, the plays, and the films over the years. We want the myths, the treasure maps, the buried treasure, the walking the plank, the resolute pirate captains with their cutlasses and earrings, and the seamen with their wooden legs and parrots. We prefer to forget the barbaric tortures and the hangings, and the desperate plight of men shipwrecked on hostile coasts. For most of us the pirates will always be romantic outlaws living far from civilization on some distant sunny shore.
